


Untitled

by Shamelessly_Radiant



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, F/M, Letting go and holding on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 06:44:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14827358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamelessly_Radiant/pseuds/Shamelessly_Radiant
Summary: Some scenes I wrote and didn't end up using or changed a lot for my fic 'Let it all go (but keep holding on)'. I thought I'd share them anyway. UNFINISHED. DISCONTINUED. SEE OTHER FIC.





	Untitled

When she walks in the next morning it is the first thing she sees: a neat white rectangle on an otherwise neat desk. It makes her stop, and sigh and smile a little and she steps forward, flicking her wand to open blinds she hadn’t closed the night before. Nothing changes, and that makes her stop for a moment, before she realises and moves forward to her desk, sitting down and pulling the requisition towards her, taking her quill and dark blue ink and signing it in even, looping script.

She reaches in her top drawer, past the pralines she got from Harry and Ginny for her birthday and keeps at the office too not eat them all at once, and gets out one of her pre-signed letter papers.

But then, she hesitates, hovering above it just a bit too long; so a single drop of ink falls onto the white, the blue spreading through the veins of the parchment until it thins out completely. She watches for a moment, and then taps it to make the drop disappear, shaking her head as she shoves it away entirely.

With a practised flick of her wrist, Hermione grabs a fluttering green memo-bird from the air, and attaches the requisition at the same time. Then, tapping it to at the magical recipient sign, she lets go just in time to avoid being pinched.

The memo smooths out its wings with its beak and gives an angry ruffle before it speeds away.

It comes back a short moment later, zooming obnoxiously around her head. She slams a paper weight down on it, and tugs until it finally relinquishes the paper it is holding. It is a thick and heavy parchment, creamy colour, on it just to words:

_Thank you._

  * _DM_



Grabbing the paper she had shoved away a moment earlier, which now looks thin and cheap in comparison- much as she does when she is standing next to him; she imagines- she writes:

_You’re welcome._

  * _HG_



The memo twitches weakly as she attaches it after lifting off the weight, but recomposes a moment later to hit her on the nose before speeding off again. It returns within five minutes, attacking her hair before dropping off the new parchment and zooming away before she can stop it. It doesn’t matter; because Hermione wouldn’t know how to respond to what she receives:

_Don’t get your head inflated, Granger. I don’t imagine a man from my position will need anything from your office soon again._

  * _DM_



Ah. There is the Malfoy she loves to hate.

She shakes her head at the parchment, unable to prevent her lips from twisting, before she wrestles her hair into a bun and pulls the first report to review her way.

.

At the next friends gathering- a pick-nick to celebrate Ginny being pregnant with Harry and hers second child- she takes Harry aside.

Seeing Ginny juggling James on one hip, the baby gurgling and grabbing her vibrant red hair, a thrill of pain goes through her veins. Her best friend is pregnant with her second child and she hasn’t even been married. It always makes Hermione feel a little old, a little insecure, a little like she’ll never be everything she wants to be.

She knows, she has accepted; Ron and she were never meant to be more than friends, and they tried until resentment began building up and their working days became longer and she ate more at her office and they didn’t see each other at all, and his stuff gradually moved from their flat to George’s one above the shop until it became her flat again, and it took a long time to build up a friendship again. Ron fell in love with Vera, the new assistant brought in by Angelina, and Hermione, though very happy for them, always felt a little of regret that she seemed unable to move on.

Harry is looking at her differently now, smile sliding slowly from his face, laugh wrinkles thinning out again, and something like understanding dawns in his eyes.

Hermione shakes her head, smiles wide, so wide, and looks down a moment to recompose herself, to blink the tears away.

“Hermione...” his hand brushes her.

“I’m fine Harry, I, well, I actually wanted to ask you about Malfoy.”

His surprise is evident, his eyebrows drawing together. “Malfoy?”

“Yes... he came to my office three days ago, waving around a requisition that needed to be signed and well, I’m curious. What he has been up to, since Hogwarts you know? He seemed... different.”

“Different,” Harry echoes, knowingly.

She hesitates, then admits: “We actually ended up talking for a while.”

Harry nods and Hermione sighs: “I want to get to know him better. Is that strange?”

“He is not the boy he used to be, Hermione.”

“I know,” she says and smiles. Of course she does. He has grown out of his prejudices, but is still wickedly smart and fast on the uptake. Observant, funny but not malicious, or well, not much. He is still very much _Malfoy_ though. Taunting, and superior and impatient. He is not kind, nor sweet, but he is pleasant in a way she finds hard to understand. And she has been thinking of him ever since the moment he barged into her office with that requisition and a coffee exactly the way she liked it, going “Long time no see, Granger, what’s new?” With some kind of uncertainty she had never seen on him before and found she quite liked.

So instead of attacking him, she had answered honestly, and had been surprised he knew so much of her projects. She had been angry with Harry at first, for enabling Malfoy to manipulate her with information, until he asked genuine questions, and smiled in a way she didn’t quite understand when he saw the shock on her face.

She hadn’t seen him since, and was surprised at how much this bothered her.

.

_After_

She imagines it to be much like a circle, life. The way things keep reoccurring even if you don’t want them too, or the way it is so damn predictable in its un-predictableness. Because here she is, and here he is, just as they were... months ago, now, and if anything, they are even more vulnerable than they were before.

This time, it is he who makes the first move, stepping forward in one smooth movement, pulling her towards him until she almost crashes into him. He stops, and looks in her eyes, the intensity of it taking her breath away. She thinks he means to say _we’ll be okay,_ or _please let me_ or maybe _help._

He pushes her left sleeve up slowly, ever so slowly, touching the soft skin of her arm the whole way and she shudders at the sensation, at the way it is sensual even. _Mudblood,_ the scar she sees every day, and that still makes her feel a number of things, brave, weak, stupid, strong, like she’ll never belong, victorious, weary, tired, afraid, important.

Malfoy- _Draco_ , locks eyes with her, and raises her arm to his lips, pressing them to the slur. He kisses it chastely, like a sinner might kiss a saint’s hand, asking for nothing more than redemption.

She raises her right hand to his face, pressing it to his cheek, and he leans into her touch fully for a heartbeat or two.

Then, she takes his left arm- tugging at it when he makes to pull away, giving him a warning glance. Resigned he lets her unbutton his silver cufflinks, and folds it upwards. The Dark Mark is still as scary as the first time she saw it, in the sky above the Quidditch Tournament, the first time she realised she was a target simply because of her birth, the first time the war became tangible- the first time he told her to _keep her bushy head down_ , and essentially protected her.

She hesitates, caught up in the past, and his face hardens, eyes tightening, jaw locked, skin pulled hard. She hesitates, and he lets out an angry breath, and tries to pull away his arm away, but again, she doesn’t let him, and just as he, presses her lips to his mark.

She hopes he understands everything she can’t say. She hopes he understands she forgives him, that he has earned his redemption, twice as much as anyone else, she hopes he understands she has grown to care for him, she hopes he understands...

“I-“

“I know, Granger. Me too.” He murmurs, stroking hair away from her face.

His touch lingers, fingers cupping her chin softly but firmly, angling her head up and to the side, and then he lowers his lips to hers.

It feels like freedom.

It feels like peace.

And Hermione kisses him back.


End file.
